


The Sound of Science

by Epiphanyx7



Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Nanny, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Children, Friendship, Gen, Kid Fic, M/M, Single Parents, Teenagers, Temper Tantrums
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-22
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-26 13:30:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2653706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epiphanyx7/pseuds/Epiphanyx7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This has been alternatively entitled “How do You Solve a Problem Like Tony Stark” “The Von Rogers Family Science Club” “Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti BOOM” “Nanny McTony” and “Raindrops on Roses and Robots with Pincers”.</p><p>Avengers fusion with The Sound of Music, but it doesn't take place in Austria, there are no nazis, and nobody is a nun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How do you solve a problem like...?

**Author's Note:**

> I have been poking away at this idea mostly when I've been feeling giggly and silly and... well, the thing is, I've been having an awful fucking week/month/year, I've had to change my meds and my doctor doesn't want to medicate my anxiety until I've stopped juggling antidepressants, I'm lonely and this month has been worse than most. So I had a bad night and somehow, tumblr made it better. The website itself linked me to some online support, and then when I made a post about it, I ended up with so much more. People from all over decided send me messages of hope/encouragement, I literally cried tears of happiness because at a time when I was feeling so extremely isolated and lonely, the internet was there for me-- not just passively so that I could lose myself in fic or youtube, but also actively helping me connect to strangers-now-friends who are telling me I'm not alone, that I've never been alone and they care about me.
> 
> I cannot express in words just how much it means to me that people like you, people who like my writing or think I'm interesting enough to [follow on tumblr](http://epiphanyx7.tumblr.com/) are here and doing nice things, for me or for others. So this is not a thank-you, this is just me trying to spread a little joy in the world. I have some to spare, after all.
> 
> ANYWAYS. So, if you are one of the people who messaged me, thank you. If you are not, thank you anyways. I love you all, and to show my love, here is a story about Tony Stark (who is not a nun), Steve Rogers (who can control his children, thank you very much), six children (who are all holy terrors), and one robot (who is a child).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She'd out pester any pest, drive a hornet from its nest  
> She could throw a whirling dervish out of whirl  
> She is gentle! She is wild! She's a riddle! She's a child!  
> She's a headache! She's an angel! She's a girl!
> 
> How do you solve a problem like Maria?  
> How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?  
> How do you find the word that means Maria?  
> A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown!
> 
> The Sound Of Music - Maria (The Nuns)

 

“I hate him,” Tony vowed into his phone. He was huddled down in the front seat of his car, wrapped in three sweaters and his old winter coat, shivering.

“Tony, he’s your father.” Pepper said soothingly into his ear. Her voice was just the right amount of sympathetic, but not gratingly sycophantic.

“He’s an idiot,” Tony replied bitterly.

“So are you.” Pepper, at least, wasn’t mean about it. 

Sighing, Tony rubbed his free hand through his hair. “Pep, what am I going to do?” He whined. “I can’t... I can’t go back. Not now. Not when he’s being so...” He trailed off. His father and he had never really gotten along, but this past year had been really bad. Really, really bad -- and now, with Howard insisting Stark Industries maintain their production lines for weapons, when Tony knew firsthand that the weapon-making industry was causing more problems than it solved---

Okay, he didn’t really care that he was fighting with his father, but this whole ‘being disowned’ thing was kind of a bummer. “Pepper...” Tony sighed. “Help me, Pepper!”

She made a pleased noise. “Look, Tony, I’ll do what I can-- but you and I both know that the only way to change Howard’s mind is to make him think it’s his own idea.”

“Yeah. Psychological manipulation, you’re good at that,” he admitted. “Just, promise you’ll try?”

“Of course I will,” Pepper said. “I’m not going to let Howard take everything from you.”

Tony huddled down into his pile of sweaters and shivered a little harder. “Okay, in the meantime,” he said. “I need a thing. A job.”

There was a meaningfully long pause, before Pepper replied. “Are you sure that’s what you want to do, Tony? I mean, you could probably find a friend to let you in... or...”

“I am living in my car, Pepper,” Tony said grimly. His teeth were going to start chattering. Why was it so cold? August was still summer, wasn’t it? “In my car,” he repeated. “You know, the convertible?”

“Where exactly are you going to get a job?” Pepper asked him. “If you go to work for any of Stark Industries’ competitors, Howard is never going to forgive you. Forget disowning you to teach you a lesson, he’ll have you written out of his will and get his lawyers onto your inheritance from your mom, too. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if even Obie wrote you off as a lost cause after something like that.”

“Please, Obie loves me,” Tony scoffed. “And besides, I was thinking I’d lay low for a while. Howard can’t get pissed at me if I work in a coffee shop or something, right?”

There was an even longer pause. “Tony, you know working is, um, work, right?”

“I need a job.” Tony reminded her. “And if I can’t do something in the field without pissing off the old man, I’m gonna have to think outside of the box. Someone will hire me.”

“Someone would hire Tony Stark, genius engineer, without hesitation,” Pepper agreed. “But you can’t get a job with any of those people without risking your future with Stark Industries. So you leave the field, that means you’re going to be looking for an entry-level position with no experience, no references, and nowhere to live in the meantime, Tony.”

“How hard could it be?” Tony asked bravely.

He had an idea of just how hard his life was going to suck until Howard decided he was too much of an embarassment to be on his own... but in the meantime, he was determined. He was NOT going to go crawling back to his dad.

“Look, I’ll just... use mom’s name.” Tony suggested. “I can be a Carbonell for a while. Legally, it’s iffy, but if I put Stark on the background check and admit Carbonell is an alias, I’m good. Scrap the experience, write me up as if I haven’t done anything since MIT. Someone is going to want to hire a smart guy like me.”

“If you say so,” Pepper said doubtfully.

\--

Two days later, Tony was still living in his car, his credit cards were all being declined, and he really, really needed a shower.

“Pepper,” he said, desperately, as he answered his phone on the first ring. “Please tell me you can help. Help me. Help me, Pepper!”

“I found you a job,” Pepper said. “It’s the only offer we’ve gotten on your account, and they’re not even waiting for an interview. If you can get there by this afternoon, you’re hired.”

“I love you,” Tony sobbed.

“I am pretty sure you’re going to kill me,” Pepper replied. 

\--


	2. I have confidence in cheese!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've always longed for adventure  
> To do the things I've never dared  
> And here I'm facing adventure  
> Then why am I so scared
> 
> A captain with seven children  
> What's so fearsome about that?
> 
> \-- The Sound Of Music - I Have Confidence (Maria)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Er, to clarify: Howard Stark is definitely alive in this AU, and he's kicked Tony out and cut off his access to the family money after a fight about Stark Industries and weapons manufacturing. I've tried to be as plausible as I can regarding how it's possible for Tony to be hired as a nanny but you know what please just ignore the massive plothole here, the entire point is that STEVE IS A SINGLE DAD and TONY IS HIS NANNY NOW okay I promise the plot holes will be less glaring as we move forward.

The thing with children was, Tony hated them.

Like, hated them.

Despised them, in fact.

They were all whiny, snot-nosed, sticky little monsters with no sense of personal space and no understanding of computer programming, so as far as Tony was concerned, they might as well be designed purely to infuriate him. The only good thing about kids was that, unlike dogs or cats, they didn’t make his eyes itch.

Tony eyed the group of them suspiciously.

“Do you have names, or something?” he asked.

They glared at him. All of them. There were like, a hundred tiny, sticky children in the room, and they all hated him already.

On the bright side, at least they lived in a big house. If he stayed on, Tony would get his own little apartment, which means he could have a hot shower for the first time in three days. That had got to be worth something, even if he did have to deal with the spawn of Satan.

“Who’re you?” one of them, a girl, demanded. She had bright, bright red hair, either because of an unfortunate accident of birth, or because somebody let her rob a salon. She was fortunately not as freckly as other kids, but Tony didn’t think that the hair colour is natural. Natural red is a little more... carroty. Like Pepper, who keeps slapping him when he calls her carrot-top, but hey, it’s not his fault she looks like a Weasley.

“I’m Tony.” He answered.

He carefully counted the number of children, surprised when he realized that there were only six of them. Six was still way too many, but it felt like he was surrounded on all sides and about to be violently trampled, so he’d expected at least fifty of the little demons.

The children shifted, looking around at each other.

“Are you the new nanny?” One of them asked.

Tony glared. “I’m not a nanny,” he protested. “I’m a temporary caretaker, tutor, and supervisor.” That sounded better in his head than outloud, and the children didn't look impressed. Fuck. He was a nanny.

“So... you’re a nanny,” one of the others said.

Tony sighed, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and then looked at them. “Okay, I can’t do this,” he said. “Line up, order of height. Shortest on this end, tallest on that end, backs to the wall.”

Strangely enough, all of the children immediately followed his instructions, lining up quickly. They looked at him, expectantly, quietly. Looking at their posture, the military posture the boys had adopted, the hands-behind-the-back pose, he had to wonder what the hell kind of life these kids were living.

At their age, tony would immediately have declared war on anyone idiotic enough to tell him what to do.

Seriously, something had to be wrong with these children. Aside from the fact that the woman at the agency had described them as “ _hellions_ ,” “ _beyond help_ ” and, most impressively, _“the worst children I’ve ever met, bar none._ ” Of course, Ms. Hill had never met Tony as a child, so her opinion was probably biased.

“Names,” he said. “Introduce yourself. First name, nickname, I don’t care, just tell me what you want me to call you and how old you are. And one thing about yourselves, if you can manage to hold three whole thoughts in your heads at once.”

The second-tallest boy glared at him. Tony beamed at him, glad at least one of them had some rebellious spirit.

The tallest boy was blond, blue-eyed, and in the middle of that awkward, gangly stage of adolescence where his hands and feet were too large for his body and he looked like a large pile of elbows. “My name is Thor,” he said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “I’m fourteen, and I like cheese.”

The second boy, as blond as the first, but slightly shorter, more freckled, and still glaring at Tony, stepped forward. “Clint. Twelve.” he said, eyes narrowed at Tony. “And I don’t need a nanny.”

Tony beamed at him, deciding that this one was going to be his favourite, because he was a cheeky little motherfucker.

“Natasha,” the redheaded girl said. She actually did have a few freckles, across the bridge of her nose. “Twelve. I,” and here she paused, clearly thinking hard about what to say. Finally, she raised her eyes, met Tony’s gaze squarely, and said, “I also like cheese.”

Tony could just feel a headache coming on.

“I’m Peter,” This one was a good foot shorter than Natasha, and had dark brown hair. “I’m eight years old and I like cheese too.” He smiled, and Tony could see he was missing a tooth. He also had freckles on the bridge of his nose, but not as many as Clint, or even Natasha, did.

“I’m Bruce,” the youngest boy said. He didn’t have freckles, not that Tony could see, but he did have huge, comically oversized glasses perched precariously on the bridge of his nose, and ears that were too large for his head. “I’m six and a half and I’m in the second grade and I like cheese but I like ice cream better and I like robots but Clint says robots aren’t real and _yes they are_ but unicorns aren’t but maybe they are, just because I haven’t met one doesn’t mean they aren't real and I haven’t met a robot but that’s okay because I still believe in them and this is Jan and she’s six and a half too and we’re twins but not identical twins because Jan is a girl and I’m a boy, also Jan is in the first grade not in the second grade like me, but Papa says that doesn’t matter we can still be twins and play together at recess but Jan doesn’t want to play on the slide she only likes the swing set and sometimes we make sand castles or play tag, but when we play tag Jan always wins because she’s faster than me.”

What.

Tony blinks at him, but the little girl next to him, shortest of all, doesn’t say anything. She shrinks back when Tony looks at her, hiding behind her twin brother.

From what he can see, these kids are weird, but no more or less so than any other children he’s ever met. Why had the agency been so desperate to find someone? Tony had been expecting these children to be possessed by the devil himself, not weirdly obedient and only a little bratty.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m Tony, I’m older than all of you, I can’t cook so don’t ask me to. If you need help in school, feel free to ask me for help, but not if it’s art class, because I am not an artsy type of man. I, for what it is worth, am not a big fan of cheese, so you don’t have to worry about me eating all of it. And from what I remember, I’m supposed to be meeting your dad, so where is he?”

“He’s behind you,” a deep voice interrupted.

Tony turned around, manfully repressing a yelp, and glared at the newcomer.

“Steve Rogers,” the man said, holding out a hand. He was tall, and blond, and blue-eyed, with a sharp jaw and strong nose and beautifully defined cheekbones, and he probably would have been good looking if he smiled. He wasn’t smiling.

Tony didn’t shake the offered hand, instead taking a step back. “Do you often leave your children unattended in the same room as a complete stranger?” He asked.

“Do you often show up on your first day of work without bothering to shave?” Rogers countered.

Tony glared at him. The not-shaving thing had been a side effect of the not-showering, not-being-able-to-afford-breakfast, and not-having-time-to-do-anything-without-being-late. He might look like a hobo, but at least he had a very good reason. He looked like a hobo because technically, _he was a hobo_.

“I said I’d come by and meet your family, Mr. Rogers,” he said, cooly. “I didn’t agree to work for you.”

Rogers looked more than a little pissed off, his jaw tightening as he considered Tony. “Captain,” he said, finally.

“Excuse me?”

“Captain Rogers.” He inclined his head. “I’m a Captain in the United States Army.”

“Great, and here I was trying to get the hell away from the Military,” Tony snapped.

“Watch your language in front of my children, Mr. Carbonell,” Rogers snarled.

“Sure thing, Cap.” Tony shrugged, turned back to the kids. “Why don’t you go entertain yourselves while your father and I talk business, kids?” he suggested.

He was going to take the job, even if it was just to crawl into a shower stall and wash four days worth of filth off of himself, but Rogers didn’t need to know that.

Rogers didn’t look happy, which was fine. Tony wasn’t here to make the bastard happy, he was here to deal with his own shit until he could convince Howard to see why his business plans suck. Tony was not going to be a goddamned nanny to six bratty children for the rest of his life, and he didn’t care if Captain Rogers liked him.

“Let’s go to my office,” Rogers said.

“Fine.”

\--

Rogers has a small office, with a large, antique-looking desk and lots of bookshelves. “Have a seat,” he said.

Tony looked at the chairs -- the one behind the desk is high-backed, leather, and looks comfortable. The others remind him of what it must be like to sit in a principal’s office to get yelled at, at once both too small to really fit him and uncomfortable, hard, and uncushioned.

“I’d rather stand.”

Rogers made a little huff of displeasure. “Look, Mr. Carbonell, it’s obvious that you’re not suited to--”

“Shut up,” Tony snapped. “Look, Rogers, it’s nice that you’re pretending you don’t need me here, but you really, really do. So why don’t you tell me why the agency you’ve hired to take care of your children is so desperate to pawn you off on a newcomer like me? No references, no experience, but they assured me you’d hire me on the spot. That leads me to believe you have no other options. Why is that?”

“I don’t care what the agency seems to think,” Rogers snapped back. “I’m trying to look after my children, but the people they’ve sent so far have been entirely unsuitable, and--”

“By which you mean, the people they sent so far have been experienced, qualified professionals with references.” Tony clarified.

Rogers glared at him.

“Look, if you don’t want me here, tell me.” Tony said. He’d probably cry, if that were the case, but worst case scenario he’d get back in his car and drive to DC to visit Rhodey. At least he’d be guaranteed a meal and a shower afterwards, even if he did run out of money.

Rogers stayed silent.

“Wow, okay,” Tony hadn’t really been expecting that, so he floundered a while. “What’s wrong with your kids? They don’t seem to be possessed by Satan or like, Barbie fanatics.”

“There is _nothing wrong with my children_ ,” Rogers snarled.

O... kay...

“Right,” Tony sighed. “Fine. What happened to the last nanny?”

“She ran screaming from the house, yelling something about rats.” Rogers said through gritted teeth. He avoided looking Tony in the eye.

... Interesting. Tony filed that one under ‘probably psychological torture or pranks by schoolchildren’, although he had to be curious about their methods. He’d never made any of his own nannies actually have a psychological breakdown, and he’d been... one heck of a shitty little brat. Of course, he also hadn’t had backup in the form of siblings, so. Maybe they weren’t really all that inventive.

“The nanny before that?”

“Was convinced that aliens were using my children to communicate with her.”

Wow. Another point in the ‘psychological torture’ column, and once more, Tony was at a loss to explain the methodology. Maybe he could make a case study out of the hell-brats and sell an award-winning book, or just ask them how they did it and sell the secret on the black market. Howard would be out of a job in no time if the world leaders started using these kids’ tactics instead of missiles.

“And before that?”

“Arachnophobic.”

Tony thought about this. “Is there some sort of reason that would factor into daily life here?” he asked, when Rogers didn’t seem to be offering any further explanation.

“Peter,” Rogers said, sighing. “Collects spiders.”

“I... see.” Tony did not see. Tony absolutely did not see.

“ _Live_ spiders.” Rogers clarified.

Tony stared at him.

“And he then decided to store them in the nanny’s suite.” Rogers continued. “Without telling her.”

“Wow,” Tony said, genuinely impressed. “Wow, okay. That’s... that’s something. Peter’s the one who...” he stops himself before he can finish that sentence with _‘likes cheese_ ’ because Tony does not need to sound like even more of an idiot. “Peter’s the one missing a tooth?” he hazarded.

Rogers nodded. “He got into a fight at school.”

Tony raised both his eyebrows. “A fight? Seriously? He’s eight. Eight years old. What was the fight about? Did they get too cranky before naptime?”

Rogers didn’t answer, instead opting to make a wide, confused gesture with his hands. “Look, Mr. Carbonell--”

“Tony.”

“Tony, it’s true that my children can be somewhat of a handful, but they’re children. They’re supposed to be a handful.” Rogers seemed to genuinely believe that.

Was he living in an alternate reality? He seemed to be completely unaware that it was unusual for nannies to run screaming away from their charges, especially with the rats and the aliens commentary. Tony decided not to disillusion him, because honestly, he felt a lot more comfortable with the children if he knew for a fact that they were gonna try their best to break him. Psychological warfare and underhanded tactics were the sort of thing Tony was very capable of dealing with. After all, he’d handled a life of academia. And living with Howard. He could handle whatever torture six brats could come up with.

“Let’s talk details,” Tony said, deciding to give the poor man a break. “You pay me weekly. I get the suite and the keys to the SUV if I need to take the kids out-- I’ve got my own car if I’m not shipping all the children around. I’ll need a copy of their schedules, extracurriculars, that sort of thing. Are they registered for school? If not, we’ll need their birth certificates and immunization records before we get them registered, schools require all sorts of documentation now...”

The list of demands was actually pretty long, and Rogers listened to the entire thing with a serious expression. “You’re serious about this,” he said, looking at Tony strangely.

“I might not be experienced dealing with children, but I’m used to being in charge.” Tony said cooly. Besides, the R&D department at SI had pretty much been a bunch of whiny babies, just in grown-up bodies. Actual children couldn’t be any more difficult to deal with. Probably. Hopefully.

“I spend a lot of time away,” Rogers said.

“I can tell.” Tony shrugged. “Not a big deal. Make sure I have an emergency contact number, that you’ve given permission for me to pick the kids up at school, sign for absences, and whatnot. If you’re out of the country make sure there’s someone with power of attorney who can make legal or medical decisions for your children on your behalf if you’re not available, and--”

The list of things that parents need to do to care for their children while absent isn’t that complicated, actually. Tony had known the whole thing by the time he was eight, and most of his life had been entirely or partially under Jarvis’ control before he even started school. Howard’s life as an absentee father was at least benefitting Tony now, when he could pretend it meant he knew more about caring for children than he did about being abandoned.

Rogers looked at him, calculatingly, for a very long time.

“Am I hired?” Tony asked, but he already knew the answer.

\--

So all he had to do was take care of six children. That couldn’t be that hard, right?

Tony crawled into bed, exhausted, wondering why ‘family dinner’ was a real thing, in a house where apparently they did not have a computer or even a television and the children all retreated to their rooms and glared out the window at the sunlight until it was time to have another painfully awkward conversation with their own father.

He called Pepper.

“Pepper,” he said, and then stopped, because had had no idea what he wanted.

“It’s okay, Tony,” Pepper said, because Pepper was wonderful.

“Can you do me a favour?” He asked, feeling miserable and maudlin and homesick.

“What is it?”

“Can you check on Dum-E for me?” he asked, wondering if he sounded as pathetic as he felt.

Pepper sighed softly. “Of course I will, Tony.”

\--


	3. When the dog... fights.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ugh... well... let's see. Nice things. Daffodils! Green meadows, skies full of stars... raindrops on roses. whiskers on kittens...

Day one dawned bright and early, and by bright and early, Tony meant it _actually happened at dawn_. As in, sunrise. As in, the sun had not finished rising, and there was a loud, pounding knock on his door.

Tony, who had fallen asleep at 3 AM while on the phone with Pepper, screamed and fell out of bed, rolled around trying to detangle his sheets, and then flung the door open, furious, to glare at Steve Rogers’ stupidly handsome face.

“What do you want?” he said, although it came out more like a low growl of fury. Like a panther. Or a disconcerted kitten.

Rogers stared at him, wide-eyed, and then he said, in a strange voice, “Breakfast.”

“I don’t cook,” Tony reminded him, although that possibly sounded more like a squeak of protest. His morning communication skills still weren’t that great. He tried again. “No,” he managed to choke out, still glaring for all he was worth.

Rogers licked his lips, made a hand-wavy gesture at Tony’s bare torso, and then said, “Get dressed, Tony.”

“I do not start work until eight o’clock,” Tony said, very slowly, so that his words came out like words instead of pathetic mewling noises. “Get out of my sight and let me sleep, you tyrant.”

Rogers blinked at him, and then said in a rather adorably confused voice, “You don’t want breakfast?”

“I want to sleep,” Tony shouted.

“Oh.” Rogers managed to look somewhat abashed.

“Okay,” Tony said, slamming the door and wading back to his bed amidst the tangled mess of blankets still wrapped around his legs.

God.

What a dick.

\--

Tony woke up several hours later. The sun was shining and his cellphone loudly proclaiming that it was eight o’clock and he was now, officially, late for work.

He dragged himself out of bed, grabbed a t-shirt, glad he’d showered last night so he didn’t have to deal with complicated ‘on’ and ‘off’ things in the morning, and walked down the stairs to the main part of the house, where six children were all dressed and staring at him like creepy little freaks.

“What,” he grunted.

“You weren’t at breakfast,” Natasha said, sounding disapproving. “We thought you _left_.”

Tony squinted at her. “Not gonna get rid of me that easily,” he muttered, turning around and trying to remember where the kitchen was. He was pretty sure he remembered seeing a coffee maker in there during his tour, and god damn did he need some coffee.

“Where’s your old man?” he asked, shuffling towards what he thought was the kitchen.

It was not the kitchen, it was a den or something, with board games. Actual board games. Tony turned around, left the room of depressing family entertainment, and managed to find the kitchen. The children were trailing behind him, like ducklings. Creepy, stare-y ducklings.

“How come you only have half a beard?” Bruce asked him.

Tony blinked at him, then decided making a pot of coffee was more of a priority than explaining the difference between ‘why’ and ‘how come’. “Fashion is complicated,” he said instead. “Your glasses are too big for your face.”

Bruce considered this carefully.

“We don’t have coffee,” Clint said.

Tony pointed at him, furious. “That is a lie,” he said firmly. “Never lie to me again, young man.”

Clint looked shocked, and then a little guilty, which meant holy shit, he’d actually been lying. Tony had only been joking. Well, mostly joking. Wishful thinking.

He turned and began searching the cupboards for anything resembling coffee, more than a little surprised when he unearthed a bag of decent dark-roasted coffee beans.

He would have smashed the beans with a hammer if he needed to, because, coffee, precious fucking coffee. That wasn’t necessary, but only because Peter lit up with joy when he saw the beans, and scurried up onto the counter, climbing halfway into a cupboard and emerging with an actual, honest-to-goodness coffee grinder.

“You’re my new favourite,” Tony told him, and made a pot of coffee.

\--

Tony finished drinking his coffee, ignoring the horde of tiny monsters surrounding him, and then left the kitchen. They followed him into the dining room, which was so painfully formal Tony almost felt at home there, and then into the garage, which was horrifyingly clean and organized.

“Where are your rooms?” he asked, and the kids pointed at the stairs.

Right.

The house was a big one, not quite a mansion but definitely on a larger scale than most. It had six bathrooms, including the one in Tony’s suite, and a large back yard with a pool. It had a sturdy-looking wooden fence, painted white with fading paint that surrounded the property.

Tony stuck his head outside. The sun was still shining, ominously, like it was just daring him to go outside and get sunburnt. “It’s warm out,” he commented.

The six children stayed silent.

“Don’t you want to go out and...” Tony trailed off. what the hell did children actually do? At their age, he’d been writing essays to get into MIT or building engines. Did normal children do that?

They looked at him.

“Find spiders?” Tony guessed, looking at Peter. Peter was the spider aficionado, right? Gap tooth, likes cheese and spiders.

Peter lit up like it was Christmas.

Fuck’s sakes.

“Go.” Tony pointed at the door. “Find a spider. Stay away from the pool.”

“I don’t like spiders,” Bruce protested.

“Find a frog.” Tony suggested. “I do not care. Go outside and stay there for half an hour. Afterwards we’ll...”

What the hell was he going to do with six children?

Eh, he’d think of something.

\--

Peter found three spiders in thirty minutes, which would have been impressive, except he was the only one who actually did something productive.

Tony groaned and tried not to hide his head in his hands. “What do you mean, they’ve been arrested?” He whined into the phone. “They’re children!”

“They’re menaces to society. They damaged public property, endangered themselves and others, and they started a brawl.” The police officer on the other end of the line  didn’t seem very concerned with Tony’s emotional health. “Come pick up your juvenile delinquents. We’ll discuss the charges when you arrive.”

“Charges,” Tony said flatly. “As in, plural. More than one. _Multiple charges_.”

“Charges,” the officer confirmed.

Tony groaned and grabbed Bruce, Jan, and Peter, glad they had at least managed to come back under their own power, and tried to load them into his car, before realizing that he would need to fit the older children in as well and instead bringing them to the family SUV.

It sat eight, comfortably, which was saying something, and also had car seats, which was something Tony hadn’t actually realized the kids would need.

Jan and Peter sat next to each other, Bruce sat behind Tony in the driver’s seat, and by the time he’d strapped all the kids into their seats it was eleven o’clock and he had a headache.

Tony resisted the urge to bang his head on the steering wheel.

\--

“I’m really very sorry,” the woman said, wringing her hands and looking wretchedly devastated. Tony had no idea what she was apologising for, but he wanted to forgive her just so she would stop looking at him like that. She had immaculately coiffed hair and the sort of genteel presence that reminded Tony of his mother. The resemblance was in her expensive perfume and obvious money, and not in her mannerism, though.

“Loki’s always been getting into trouble,” her companion said. He was scowling at his kid, a dark-haired, skinny little twerp with a black eye. Tony glared at him, certain that this kid was the one who was ruining his day.

Thor, standing beside Tony, was shamefacedly staring at the ground. He had a split lip and a rapidly swelling bruise on his knuckles, probably because he hit the other kid in the face, when he should have aimed for center mass, or something less likely to mess up his hands. Tony was going to talk to him about that later, but for now, he smiled politely and shook hands and apologised for whatever the hell the fucking preteen Rogers children had done to get into a brawl with the neighbour kids.

The other parents, at least, weren’t being bitchy about it, and assured Tony that they wouldn’t press charges.

Clint and Natasha didn’t even have the acting ability to look ashamed, which was really disappointing. What kind of children were these, anyways, Tony wondered as he shoved them all into the SUV and started the engine. Seriously. Seriously.

He tried to ignore the depressing silence that immediately descended on them when he pulled out of the police station parking lot. He wasn’t about to play music or whatever, so he just clenched his jaw and breathed through his incandescent rage, until he realized he was hungry and so the kids probably were too.

“Okay,” Tony said. “So that’s something we’re going to have to work on.”

“We’re not juvenile delinquents,” Clint said, the first words he’d managed in his defence.

“Yeah, I meant more along the lines of Thor learning social skills,” Tony said. He wasn’t sure how the fight had started, but he had a pretty good idea it was because punching people was easier than trying to deal with complicated social situations, and Thor knew it. “And you and Tasha really need to work on your acting skills, nobody’s going to believe you’re sorry if you can’t fake it.”

“Aren’t you going to yell at us?” Natasha demanded, sounding more than a little annoyed. “We got into a fight.”

“Didn’t you get yelled at enough by the police?” Tony asked. “Look, I’m not going to say I’m happy with the situation, but nobody got hurt. You didn’t cause irreversible damage to anybody’s face, and quite honestly, that sculpture you knocked over was really ugly so I doubt anyone is really feeling it’s loss. It’s fine. Just. Y’know. Try not to get into any more fights.”

They sat in silence for a few more minutes.

“What was the fight about?” Bruce asked.

None of the older children answered him.

\--

He made an assembly line of sandwiches, each child responsible for one topping while manned the toaster. Soon he was going to be forced into some basic kitchen skills, but today would not be that day.

Tony fed the brats lunch and then made them play board games with each other for forty minutes while he googled “Captain Steven Rogers” on his phone. He then had to close the window and spend ten minutes with his eyes closed, breathing to suppress a surge of rage when the first result of his search was the Captain being presented with a _Medal of Honor_ by the actual fucking _President of the United States_. 

None of the monsters were that invested in winning monopoly, but after the third time Peter put his mouth on the board and refused to spit the hotel out without monetary compensation, Bruce flipped out and had a screaming, crying, violently throwing furniture around the room tantrum, and Tony was forced to intervene.

For a six year old, he was _really_ freaking strong.

“Okay,” Tony decided. “That is enough. Enough, I say!”

Tony made them do laps around the back yard until they were exhausted, then he had them change into their swimsuits and they spent the rest of the time in the pool, splashing around half heartedly and giving Tony sad, soulful looks. He wasn’t torturing them, or anything, but they seemed to think he was.

Whatever. Who cared what they thought, anyway.

\--

Captain Rogers returned in time for dinner, which was fortunate, because Tony would have been forced to try cooking something otherwise, and that probably would have gotten him fired. Well, not the cooking, but the last time he’d tried to cook something he blew up the kitchen, and Tony had the feeling that any kind of explosion would get him fired. Or kill a child. Something bad like that.

The kids had all gotten suspiciously quiet around four thirty, almost as if they were plotting against him. No, _exactly_ as if they were plotting against him. Tony had no idea why the children hated him -- although he took at least a small amount of satisfaction in the fact that it was mutual hatred at least -- but he was determined to not let them beat him. He’d faced off against Howard. He had Pepper as his backup. Probably. Well, she was his emotional backup.

He wasn’t going to get bullied by a bunch of twerps with underdeveloped brains.

“How was your day?” Rogers asked, looking at Thor.

Thor smiled at him, sunnily. “It was good, father,” he said. “We played outside. Tony said we had a lot of energy.” He stopped, eyes flicking down to his plate where he was pushing his vegetables around.

If Tony hadn’t been there to see the brawling teenagers being separated by police officers, he’d never have guessed Thor had been in any trouble. Maybe Thor should give his siblings some tips, because Clint and Natasha both had the most obvious guilty-faces he’d ever seen.

“Is that right...?” Rogers asked evenly, looking over at Tony.

The children all hunched in on themselves, like they were expecting Tony to tell their dad all about their exciting activities that day.

“Peter found three spiders this morning,” Tony said, taking a large bite of his salad and staring directly at Thor until the teenager ate a bite of his own veggies. “And Jan learned to float on her back in the pool. I hope you don’t mind that I took the cover off, the kids were pretty tired after all that... energetic running about, so I thought it would be nice for them to cool off.”

He continued eating, smiling pleasantly around the table. It wasn’t a real smile, more like his Official Tony Stark Paparazzi and Media Frenzy smile, but it seemed to pass muster.

Captain Rogers seemed a little confused. “Did... did anything happen today that I need to know about?”

Technically he needed to know that his children were violent psychopaths and that Tony was likely to throttle them, but then again, ‘ _need_ ’ was a very strong word.

“Thor needs new pants,” Tony said, instead of answering the question. “School will be starting in four days, and he’s showing quite a lot of ankle. Do you have plans to take the kids back-to-school-shopping?”

Rogers frowned. “I have to leave tonight,” he said. “I’ll be gone a week. I’ll leave my credit card, you can get the kids whatever they need.”

Tony raised an eyebrow.

“Natasha could use some new dresses for school, and new shoes.” Clint said.

Natasha, who didn’t look too happy at the prospect, elbowed her brother in the side.

“I need new shoes,” Bruce said.

“Me too! And Jan does too, her toes pinch!” Peter announced.

Rogers sighed. “Tony, can you take them--”

“Wait, what do you mean _you’re leaving?_ ” Tony demanded. “Where are you going? Are you seriously leaving me _alone_ with your _children_ after only a day? What the hell kind of father are you?”

Captain Rogers stood up, glaring, his face flushed red with anger. “Look, Mr. Carbonell, I don’t know--”

Tony would never know what Rogers was going to say, because at that point a large spider crawled out of Peter’s hair and onto the table, and the rest of his sentence was drowned out by Bruce and Jan screaming at the top of their teeny, adorable lungs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, while this story is mainly about Tony and children, there are some background pairings that will probably come up at some point. The first is Tony/Steve, because I have a problem, but there are some secondary pairings that may never be fleshed out but do exist in some capacity: Thor/Loki (who are not brothers), Steve/Peggy (past) and whatnot.
> 
> This chapter does not get into any of that, but the makings are there.


	4. A few of my favourite things.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens  
> Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens  
> Brown paper packages tied up with strings  
> These are a few of my favorite things

Tony filled the bathtub with... well, it was probably about fifty percent bubbles, fifty percent toys, zero percent water, if he was being honest.

He dumped Peter and Bruce into the mess and stirred them until they came out smelling vaguely clean. Peter, he’d noticed, was perpetually sticky, and Bruce managed to have himself covered in filth and looking almost green by the time they’d been ready for bed. Jan, who had yet to say a single word to him, was clutching her towel and a toy Tinkerbell with desperation as she waited for her turn in the tub, and Tony had sent the older children off to get themselves ready for bed without his supervision. If they got arrested again, he promised, they would have to rot in jail overnight because he was absolutely not going to pick them up before nine o’clock the next morning.

Thor, who had heard his whispered promise, only looked moderately guilty. Clint and Natasha had stared at him with cold, dead eyes, like the children of the corn, and made absolutely no promises to behave themselves.

Okay, so the brats were starting to grow on him. That sort of unrepentant disregard for rules and authority spoke to him, on an emotional level. It was impossible _not_ to like them, they were like miniature versions of Tony.

Tony threw a bath towel over Peter’s head atried to dry him off, only to be thwarted by a rather impressive barrel roll. And then Peter took off running, buck-ass-naked, down the hallway. Bruce laughed, either at Tony's expression (god only knew what he looked like) or at Peter's antics.

“Get back here, you little monster!” Tony yelled. Peter was screeching in delight, apparentlly enjoying his moment of naked freedom while Tony chased him with the towel. Bruce skipped happily behind them, equally naked but at least holding the towel over his shoulders like a cape.

Peter screeched again, turned the corner, and then there was a loud thump.

Tony’s heart did this terrible, clenching thing, like it had suddenly forgotten how to beat. He ran around the corner to where the stairs were, certain he was going to find a bratty eight year old body crumpled on the landing and surrounded by blood.

Instead, he found Captain Steve Rogers, in full dress uniform, holding his dripping wet and naked child up by one ankle.

Tony stopped, looked at the other man, and then handed him the towel.

Peter, who was dangling upside down, had stopped giggling and was instead wide-eyed, craning his head to see Tony.

“Sorry, Cap.” Tony said, using Peter’s momentary lapse in escape artistry to swaddle him in the towel. “You, uh, getting ready to leave? You look... well, you look very formal.”

“They’re sending a car for me,” Rogers said, quietly. “You... seem to be...” he trailed off, looking confused. He stared at Peter, who was letting Tony hold him in his towel-cocoon, and Bruce, who’d tagged along and was waving shyly at him.

“No worries, Cap.” Tony said, hoisting Peter over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Let’s see the little twerp escape from this, he thought to himself gleefully. “You enjoy your trip. You’re gonna be back in eight days, right?”

“Yes.” The Captain was still watching him, warily, his expression unreadable. “I’m sure you’ll manage fine.”

“I will,” Tony agreed. All he had to do was keep the brats alive for eight days. He could totally manage that.

“I’ll just... be going, then.” Rogers said, finally.

Tony didn’t mention how callous it was, for Rogers to make his way to the doorway and walk away without saying goodbye to his kids. He didn’t mention that Peter and Bruce had stopped laughing the moment they’d seen their father in his uniform, or that both kids were pretty unnaturally quiet now. Tony didn’t say anything, because he was used to it, because he’d been the kid watching his father walk out the door one too many times, and quite honestly, he didn’t care what Rogers’ reasons were.

“Come on, guys,” Tony said, resting a hand on Bruce’s damp hair. “Let’s get you into bed.”

\--

He dressed the boys in their PJs and somehow managed to run a bath for Jan as well, grateful that the little girl was at least able to follow basic instructions such as “don’t drown”.

She, oddly enough, seemed to be more comfortable with Tony as time went on, instead of turning into a bratty, sticky, messy monster like her brothers, she simply stopped hiding behind everything. She tagged along in near-silence, dressing herself and feeding herself and minding herself, and Tony hated it. He hated it so much, because the rest of the kids were-- well, they were brats, they were terrible psychopaths who were destined for a life of crime, but at least they acted the way children should act. Jan didn’t cause any trouble, and every moment of every minute he spent in her presence made Tony desperately want to change that.

What kind of kid didn’t cause any trouble?

She wrapped herself in a large, fluffy towel three times the size of her, taking small steps as she walked to her bedroom so she didn’t trip. Tony followed with her, trying to remind himself that it was normal to help a little kid with getting dressed, and that there was nothing creepy about his presence. Well, nothing too creepy. Did women-nannies have to deal with this kind of pressure? How could he tell if he was being creepy?

Ugh, this was way too complicated. Tony shoved the nightgown over Jan’s shoulders, relieved that she was at least covered now, and then stared around her room. “Where’s all your... stuff?” he asked.

Jan didn’t reply, instead she tucked the towel into a hamper in the corner, and then skipped out of the door, presumably to find her brothers and watch while they wrecked something.

But her room was...  plain. Plain and boring. There were no pictures on the walls, no posters, no decorations. Her bedspread was clean, functional, striped yellow and orange, but other than that the room had no colour, no little personal touches. All of the toys were... somewhere else, maybe in her closet, but it looked like the sort of room that didn’t get lived in.

There was a deep sense of wrongness there, Tony didn’t know how to put it into words.

Suspicious, he immediately checked Bruce and Peter’s room -- the boys shared a small room with a bunk bed, but he could clearly see a poster of Wall-E on one wall, and a bunch of smaller pictures of cars, dinosaurs, and spiders. The floor was covered in Lego and dirty clothes, and the beds were both unmade, covers falling off and pillows scattered about.

Natasha’s door was firmly shut, and Tony had just enough presence of mind to not try and invade her personal space because... well, a pre-teen girl was pretty much the most terrifying version of any child, ever. He didn’t want to make her angry.

Clint and Thor’s room was across the hall from hers, though, and while they had a larger space than the younger boys, the room was just as sparse and impersonal as Jan’s.

Creepy, he thought, before he went downstairs to find the kids sprawled out on the carpet in the den, wearing their PJs.

“What are you doing?” Tony asked, because whatever they were all planning to do together, in their pajamas, as a group, could clearly not bode well for his peace of mind. He wasn't sure how they'd organized the rat-themed mental breakdown of his predecessor, but it had probably started like this.

“ _Reading_ ,” Clint said, rather viciously in Tony’s opinion. “What, you’ve never seen a book before?”

Tony took a deep breath, because what kind of children sat down and read a book together instead of watching TV or playing XBox or--

Except that he hadn’t actually _seen_ a TV or Xbox in the house, which meant maybe there wasn’t one, and he cut that line of thought off before he hyperventilated himself into a coma. “Right,” Tony said. “Whatever you’re reading, stop it. We’re going to... uh.” He stopped, because he didn’t actually know what to do with kids, and he was still flying by the seat of his pants.

“Can we play Monopoly again?” Thor asked.

“ _No_ ,” Tony said. “No, reading is good. Let’s go with that.”

Clint, who’d been clutching his novel to his chest like it was his security blanket, heaved a sigh of relief. “Okay,” he said, holding the book out to Tony. “We’re on chapter four.”

Tony stared at him.

The children all looked at him, expectantly.

“Wait, you want _me_ to read?” Tony whined when Clint handed him the book. “Goddamnit, this isn't what I signed on for. Ugh, fine, where did you leave off?"

"Tasting the copper flow of blood." Natasha said helpfully.

Tony paused, then looked at the title of the book. "What the hell sort of book is John Dies at the End?" he asked.

Clint shifted guiltily. "Uh, it's... like, a modern... horror story?"

" _Oh son of a motherfuck the fucking soy sauce is digging a fucking hole into my fucking face,_ " Tony read out loud incredulously. "Seriously, guys, does your dad know you're reading this? What the hell, I thought you'd be reading Harry Potter or something."

"We finished Harry Potter," Peter piped up. "Dad said we could pick _anything we wanted_ from the library."

"We wanted this one," Natasha chimed in.

Tony looked down at the page in front of him. "Uh," he said. This particular book had likely never crossed their father's mind as a possibility, but... hey, it was a loophole. Technically, the kids weren't breaking any rules, and that meant Tony couldn't get in trouble for reading this book to them. "Right, okay then."

He began to read. _"I tasted the copper flow of blood into my mouth, felt something moving over there... Oh son of a motherfuck the fucking soy sauce is digging a fucking hole into my fucking face. I feel flat on the floor, thrashing and rolling like a seizure, I forgot where I was, who I was, everything in my mind was vaporized by a hydrogen bomb of panic. **Oh this hurts this hurts this hurts I can feel the thing crawling across my teeth now oh shiiiiiittt...** "_

\--

Later, Tony finally flopped down onto his bed, face-first, exhausted and a little concerned about his emotional well-being.

“Pepper,” he mumbled, voice muffled by the blankets. “Pepper, I think I’m dying.”

“Tony, this was important,” Pepper said, her tone serious. “Dum-E has been getting into trouble at school.”

Tony flopped around like a fish until he managed to dig his cellphone out of the covers and hold it up in the vicinity of his face. “Dum-E is a robot, he doesn’t go to school.”

“Well, he’s been getting into trouble in the R&D department, and when they kicked him out and sent him to the focus groups, he got into even more trouble.” Pepper told him. “After that, he was sent to assist in the daycare facility, only he ended up doing less assisting and more being-a-nuisance, and Obie was threatening to have him taken offline and--”

“No!” Tony shouted into the phone. “No, Pepper, they can’t do that! He’s sentient, okay? How many times to I have to explain this, he’s not a machine, he was a sentient creature, he has self-awareness and taking him offline was torture! They cannot do that, you can’t let them, I’ll--”

“I know, Tony, I wasn’t going to let anything happen to him!” Pepper shouted back. “I got him out of Stark Industries but he can’t stay with me forever, I have to go back to work and we need a more permanent solution to--”

“Bruce likes robots,” Tony said, realizing the answer to all of his problems. “Of course! Pepper, send him here!”

“... to your car?”

“To my job!” Tony grinned at his phone. “It’s a-- here, I’ll text you the address, you can have him shipped commercially if you don’t have time to bring him yourself, I love you Pepper, this was wonderful--”

“Tony, are you sure this was okay with your employer? Maybe you should--”

“I should sleep,” Tony said, hitting the end call button.

He was snoring before he even had a chance to turn off the lights.

\--

It was still dark when Tony woke up. It took a while to gather his thoughts, and then he realized that he was awake because there was a heavy, warm weight on his chest. He shifted, trying to dislodge it-- he didn’t remember a cat, but then again, the damn things loved following him around and sneaking up on him to give him allergies when he was trying to sleep.

Except then the warm, heavy thing elbowed him in the throat and he choked on air, flopping around until he managed to dislodge himself.

The not-a-cat turned out to be Jan.

Jan was sleeping in his bed.

Jan was sleeping on Tony’s bed, now that Tony was awake, he saw Bruce curled up behind her, and Peter at the foot of the bed looking rumpled and with one leg hanging off the edge.

Tony looked around, wild-eyed, but he couldn’t see any more children. Thank god.

“Come on,” he said, tugging Peter into one arm and throwing Bruce over his shoulder. He makes his way unsteadily back to the rest of the house and tucked the boys into their own beds, returning to his room to grab Jan and do the same with her.

Tony climbed back into bed, stretching out so he was occupying all the space on the queen-sized mattress, and fell back asleep.

\--

He woke up to the sound of thunder, rain lashing against his window. This time, he found Clint mashed up against his back, huddled under the covers. Taking quick stock of the situation, Tony found Natasha draped over Clint's shoulder, and the littler kids were all back where they’d been in the first place.

Squinting at the clock, Tony managed to make out 5:22 AM. He couldn’t possibly deal with this shit without coffee in his system, so he closed his eyes and fell back asleep.

\--

He woke up at 8:44AM with all six kids crammed onto the not-inconsiderable space on his bed. Tony was pretty much the only one who didn’t have room to breathe, and that was more on account of Peter’s knee being lodged up against his windpipe and Bruce snoring heavily with his weight all over Tony’s lungs. Gasping, Tony attempted to escape his prison, but then he ended up precariously balanced on the edge of the mattress, teetering with only the weight of Jan’s legs over his waist keeping him in place.

“Shit,” Tony swore, and then the clock beside the bed changed to 8:45AM, the alarm shrieking it’s terrible displeasure at Tony being a lazy ass. The children all woke up, sending Tony tumbling down to the ground.

“PIZZA’S HERE,” Peter announced, bleary-eyed, rolling off the bed and landing on top of Tony hard enough to knock the breath out of him.

Tony groaned.

“Oh my god, Clint.” Natasha said from somewhere above them. “You smell like ass, get away from me.”

“I’m hungry,” Bruce piped up.

Various grumbling noises agreed with Bruce’s initial assessment of the situation, to which Tony responded to by groaning a little louder. “Get off me, punk,” he said to Peter, who seemed to have fallen asleep again. “I can’t breathe, what was this, I need coffee. Clint, where’s my coffee?”

There’s a short moment of silence, after which Clint’s voice said, “I’m not here.”

Thor, Natasha, and Bruce all murmured agreeably with that statement.

“I know you’re here, you brats.” Tony whined. “Make me coffee. Thor! Make me coffee. If you make me coffee I promise I won’t complain about you all being afraid of thunderstorms, or whatever it was that made you decide you couldn’t sleep in your own beds last night.”

“Fine,” Thor grumbled, crawling out of the bed with his hair sticking up in eleven different directions (and eleven different dimensions, hah!). He shuffled out of the room, yawning widely.

Tony even managed to pry Peter off of him by the time the pot was finished brewing.

\--

Tony had a list of things to do today. He wrote it last night, at some point, scrawling it haphazardly over a loose piece of notebook paper he'd found in one of his pockets. Squinting at it, he read:

  1. COFFEE,

  2. UGH DON'T KILL THE BRATS

  3. Food?

  4. SHOPPING FOR SCHOOL STUFF

  5. sleep or whatever.




He wasn’t certain that this was a good idea, but he didn't ’t have a choice. The brats needed... things... for school, and what those things were didn’t really concern him. Tony had literally no idea what things were necessary for a year in the public education system, but it was probably his job to obtain them, so. He was gonna do it.

He would probably be better off not knowing, but, he didn't want to look incompetent, so he googled 'what do kids need for school' on his phone while the coffee percolated.

So far, he had already achieved both numbers one and two without any effort, so he gave himself a mental pat on the back, and then dragged the children into the family SUV to take them through the McDonald’s drive-thru for breakfast. After all, that was... food. No matter what lies or exaggerations Pepper and Tony collaboratively put on his half-assed resume, he still didn't know how cook, and he was also pretty certain that the Rogers Family Refrigerator hadn’t been cleaned out since the Stone Age, “No way in hell am I risking my gastrointestinal system eating some of the questionable leftovers I saw in there,” he vowed.

“What’s gas-tro-in-tes-tin-al?” Bruce asked him with wide eyes.

“You said a bad word,” Peter informed him.

“Shut up and eat your happy meal,” Tony slides his sunglasses back into place, slurping happily at his keg-sized coffee. He politely ignored the chaos around him as the children devoured their weight in deep-fried junk. Not his problem. Rogers could deal with their collective struggle with childhood obesity after Tony left, but right now, he thought the Captain would rather have his kids eating fried food than nothing at all. Tony wasn't going to leave the little jerks starving at home like the unrepentant little shits probably deserved.

\--

Tony very quickly realized that he had made a _grievous error in judgement_.

Shopping with children was, quite frankly, impossible. Shopping with several children was probably the sort of thing that counted as ‘cruel and unusual’ according to the Geneva convention. Tony was so far out of his depth here. So very, very far.

“Mine!” Peter yelled, holding onto the front of the shopping cart, making every attempt to pry Jan out of the seat.

Tony sighed, thumbing open his phone, and called Pepper.

-

Tony was a terrible person, which was why he ended up standing in a toy store, neck-deep in screaming-with-excitement children. Even the older ones -- Thor and Clint and Natasha -- were perusing the nerf gun section with an almost scary level of dedication. The little ones are crowded around all the science toys, robot-making and stargazing and one that looked like a slime factory. Tony wasn’t quite sure why these children are gravitating toward the toys that will let them create the maximum amount of chaos, but he was totally okay with their instincts. Robots were awesome, and whatever a slime factory was probably was cool, too.

Using Captain Rogers' credit card, he bought everybody their own robot-making kit, nerf gun, and a huge pile of extra nerf ammunition.

Then he took them back to the house, to let them free in the yard while they did their best to kill their siblings.

"This means war," Clint said, narrowing his eyes at Thor. He was unpacking a nerf bow with a gleeful look on his face.

Thor grabbed the largest, most unweildy nerf gun and grinned at him. "You cannot defeat me," he announced loudly.

Bruce and Peter were looking thoughtfully at one of the other weapons, sneaking occasional looks at Clint and Thor that probably indicated some sort of chaos-filled melee in the near future. Natasha and Jan were both giving each other exasperated looks while they started pocketing the smaller weapons.

"Uh," Tony said, because even he could tell that this was going to get out of control really, really quickly. "Rules! No fistfighting, no pushing each other into the pool. If I see blood, everybody gets grounded. Please don't do anything that will result in permanent damage to each other or the house. You are not allowed to steal weapons from other people, but anything that's been dropped or discarded is fair game."

The kids didn't bother to acknowledge him. They burst into movement, running in all directions as they sent nerf darts flying through the air. Most, if not all, of the darts managed to hit Tony in the chest.

"Also, try your best to kill _each other_ , not me," Tony said, glaring.

\--

Tony lugged his laptop outside, sprawling on a chair near the pool, and opened up amazon.com so he could get this school supply shit all sorted. Pepper would be proud of his multitasking skills, he decided, as he purchased Peter a backpack shaped like a giant tarantula. When he wearing it, it would look like a giant spider was on his back. It didn't come in adult sizes, despite Tony looking all over the internet.

“You suck,” he whispered to the tarantula backpack. “Why the hell don't they make full-sized luggage sets in ' _tarantula_ '?”

“Are you talking to yourself?” Natasha asked, popping up by his shoulder. “And don’t get me anything pink or purple or frou-frou. I hate pink.”

“Got it, no pink. What’s your favourite colour?” Tony asked her.

“Black.”

He eyed the teenager suspiciously, but Natasha looked deadly serious. Her jaw was clenched in the stubbornest expression of puerile anger he’d ever witnessed. “Wow,” Tony said, squinting at her. “Wow, okay-- so I take it the frilly skirts and lace-detailed everything wasn’t your idea?” He had yet to see her wear something that wasn't... ruffled.

Natasha made an expressively unpleasant face, like she swallowed a rotten lemon. “My dad’s kind of old-fashioned,” she said. "My mom used to do all the shopping."

“Sit down,” Tony shifted over to give her some space on the lawn chair next to him, patting the ratty furniture as invitingly as he’s able (which was not very). “You can help me pick stuff out.”

“What, because I’m such a fan of _shopping_?” Natasha asked derisively.

“Because you can at least tell me if something is hideous and you hate it?”

Natasha sighed, raised her nerf gun, and fired two shots that practically ruffle the hair on Tony’s head as they whiz by.

“OW!” Thor said, behind him.

“I’m busy, Thor.” Natasha glared at him.

“Ugh,” her brother said.

\--

Natasha picked out a wardrobe for herself that was all black or dark grey, with pretty much zero ruffles, lace, or girly designs on it. Tony figured there was no reason to antagonize the teenage girl, so he agreed to all her choices, checked to make sure they'd be the right size, and then asked her if she was going to need a formal outfit for dances and stuff.

Natasha eyes him suspiciously, then shrugged.

“Right, well, if you do,” Tony said. “Let me know and we’ll go pick out either a tux or a dress.”

He gave up on pretending that he knew what the kids liked. Aside from Peter’s joyful love of spiders, the only thing he really knew about these kids was their penchant for getting into trouble and their all-consuming love of cheese. That, and they were probably somewhat psychologically disturbed, but that wasn't really his department.

Tony went the easiest route and just colour coordinated the school supplies for the brats. A short interrogation revealed each of their favourite colours, and thus Thor’s school supplies now were all in red. Clint’s were purple, which was somewhat surprising but not at all out of character (Tony still couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not, the little shit. He was definitely Tony’s favourite). Natasha’s things were black, Peter’s were spider-themed (in varying shades of red, blue, and black), Bruce’s things were all green, and Jan’s were mostly yellow or Tinkerbell'd.

Clothes were more difficult. Thor was showing a lot of ankle, and Clint looked as if he was on the verge of a growth spurt, so whatever size clothing they were wearing now wasn't going to be okay for school. That meant Tony was either going to have to have them measure their inseams, or guess and risk them having ill-fitting clothes for school.

Unfortunately, as a fully grown man, Tony was not about to go anywhere near either of their inseams because gross, and also no. Even if he had been able to get ahold of a tape measure, he was pretty certain that it would immediately disappear into one or the other's bedrooms, and then he'd never be able to touch the tape measure ever again. 

Utilizing his quick problem-solving skills, Tony ran up to his bedroom, grabbed one of his tailored suit pants, and then went back to the yard. "Hey, Thor," he yelled. "Come put this on."

Thor was currently being pummelled with nerf darts by all five of his siblings, so he looked grateful for the reprieve. "Why?" he asked, as he rolled out from Peter and Jan and tried to fix his hair.

"Just put it on."

"I'm not taking my pants off," Thor said.

He was wearing shorts, but Tony decided not to mention that. "Just pull it on over your clothes, I just need to estimate your inseam."

"What's an inseam?" Bruce asked.

"It's how long your pants are," Tony answered, while Thor obligingly yanked on the pants.

They were a little bit loose around the waist, but the length was right.

"Jesus," Tony said, sighing. "You're gonna be a monster, Thor. Okay, feel free to drop trou, I gotta go pin down Clint."

"Why's he gonna be a monster?" Bruce asked. "What does 'drop trou' mean? Are you and Clint going to wrestle?"

"His inseam is the same as mine, even though I'm taller," Tony said to Bruce. "That means he's got long legs compared to the size of his torso, and he's only fourteen which means he's probably nowhere near done growing yet. So I say he's going to be a monster because he's going to be huge by the time he's finished. I am absolutely not going to wrestle with Clint, never say that again, and 'drop trou' means taking off your pants, which you shouldn't be doing in public except that right now Thor was wearing my pants over his shorts so it's okay."

Bruce's eyes lit up. "Why do you need to know how long Thor's? Why did you say you were going to pin Clint down if you weren't gonna wrestle? Why's it okay to take off your pants if you're not in public?"

This was never going to end. Tony squinted at him. "I meant that I need to _find_ Clint, because need to know how long Clints pants are."

"They're one pants long," Bruce told him.

"Okay, but I need to know how many inches that is."

"Why don't you measure the pants he has that he's not wearing?" Bruce suggested. "Then you don't have to find him."

"I need to know how long his pants should be, not how long they are right now." Tony said. They found Clint hiding behind the shed, and dragged him out to put on the pants.

"How long are my pants?" Bruce asked.

"One pants long," Tony said, because he couldn't resist. "Or probably half the length of mine. What size do you wear?"

Bruce thought about it for a while. "I dunno."

Clint was tall enough that the pants dragged on the ground, but they weren't comically overlarge. "Ugh," Tony said. He hadn't had a lot of time to look at Rogers, but the man had been... taller than Tony, for sure. His boys would probably take after him, which meant Tony had to buy clothes for both Clint and Thor in increasingly long sizes. On the bright side, since they were close in measurements, Clint could probably wear Thor's hand-me-downs.

"Thanks," Tony said. "Okay, we're done, let me get back to torturing myself with clothes shopping."

He bought them several pairs of jeans, a variety of t-shirts that he thought were cool, and for the younger kids just grabbed a mishmash of things in various shapes and sizes. Anything that was too big would be quickly grown into, anything that was too small could be returned. Probably.

Whatever. Captain Rogers should have bought his own kids their goddamned clothes, if he didn’t want Tony using his Amex. It’s not like school didn’t start _this week_ , and Thor was still walking around in jeans that showed off his ankles and half his shin.

\--

“Tony, Dum-E’s been shipped out express freight,” Pepper whispered into the phone, sounding a little frightened. “The R&D department are up in arms, they think Howard’s been holding out on him-- nobody has been able to replicate the learning AI even in the most basic sense, and the schematics for the new missiles are a mess. Howard’s trying to make sense of your notes, but they’re really feeling your loss.”

“Good,” Tony said grimly. “I hope they all suffer, I hope they all suffer so much.”

“It’s not pretty. R&D keeps suggesting they call in outside consultants and experts to look at things like the power sources or even checking out that proposed satellite project, and Howard’s been shooting them all down in increasingly rude ways. Half the board was talking about locking him out, Tony. I shouldn’t even know that, but people keep asking me when you’re coming back, and whether or not you’ll be able to put a leash on the old man--”

“Hah!” Tony said, triumphant.

“This isn’t funny, Tony. This was the future of your company. If Howard destroys everything now, there won’t be anything left for you to pick up the pieces!” Pepper said.

“Yeah,” Tony said. “But if Howard doesn’t back down, I’d have to start from scratch anyways. Let him figure it out and come calling when he’s not so determined to put me in my place.”

“Ugh, fine.” Pepper groaned. “Look, just be there to sign for Dum-E. I made sure he’d be in standby mode, and explained to him that he was going to be with you for a while. I don’t know how much of it he understood, though, and I’m worried he’ll come back online in transit. He’s in a _box_ , Tony. It’s dark in there, you know how he hates the dark--”

“I’ll be home, I promise.” Tony said. “And I wouldn’t let anything happen to Dum-E. Thanks, Pepper, you’re the greatest.”

Pepper sighed. “I miss you, Tony. Come back soon, okay?”

“I miss you too, Pepper,” Tony said. He doesn’t promise to come back soon, because he’s not a liar.

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you ever have a choice in the matter, do NOT go shopping with children.  
> If you ever have a choice in the matter, do NOT go shopping with six entire children and one entire adult. That is... a bad idea.
> 
> PS: If you're wondering where the "sixteen going on seventeen" musical number is, it happened in the previous chapter between Thor and Loki, and it was less of a dance/musical number than it was a fight/destruction of public property number.


	5. First Day of School

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This entire story is unbeta'd. If you want to beta it or point out grammatical errors/inconsistoncies/tense slips, please feel free.

The first day of school dawned bright and early. Again. Because Tony’s life sucked.

Tony woke up to the shrill beeping of his alarm clock. Jan’s foot was in his mouth, Peter was snoring softly against his neck, and also kind of drooling. A lot. Bruce had stolen all of his pillows and Clint, Thor, and Natasha were piled on the floor next to the bed, huddled miserably under a single thin blanket.

“Ugh,” Tony mumbled. 

He pried Jan’s foot out of his face as gently as he could and then stumbled downstairs to turn on the coffee pot and set the table.

The kids didn’t automatically follow him down, so after he finished setting out the cereal and milk he takes advantage of the quiet to drink his first cup of coffee. And then his second. And third.

Feeling sufficiently caffeinated, Tony stomped back up the stairs to glare at the unmoving lump of children who had, in his absence, migrated from the floor to the warmth of his recently-vacated bed.  He prodded the blanket with one finger. “Get up,” he said.

“Murrrghl,” the large blanket-lump whimpered.

“Get up, school starts today.” Tony insisted, poking the blanket again.

“SCHOOL!” Bruce flailed his way out of the blanket, flailing with excitement. His momentum propelled him out of the tangled pile of limbs and onto the floor, where he landed with a loud thump and a huge grin.  “TODAY is SCHOOL.” He raised both fists as if in victory.

“Noooo....” A voice that sounded a lot like Clint’s said. It could have been Thor, though.

Jan peeked out of the blanket, before wiggling her way to the edge of the bed and holding her arms up imperiously. Tony lifted her up into his arms, not because the child had trained him or anything, he just didn’t want her to have to walk on the cold floor. 

“Get up, you lazybones.” he prodded the blanket lump again.

“I don’t waaaaaaaaaaaaannna.” Clint’s voice said again.

“Well, you have to.” Tony said. “If you don’t go to school, I’ll get in trouble and your father will fire me. Plus, you’ll all stay stupid and annoying, and have no social skills. Sort of how you are right now.”

“Blarnngh.” Natasha’s voice said, sullenly.

Tony grabs the edge of the blanket and drags it away from the bed with him as he takes Bruce and Jan downstairs to have breakfast.

\--

They all eventually get dressed, and shuffle dejectedly down to the kitchen to eat their cereal and glare at Tony.

Jan seemed mostly unmoved by the trial of starting school, Bruce was so excited he was practically vibrating, and Peter seemed to be mostly enthusiastic about wearing his tarantula backpack. 

The older kids looked as if Tony was sending them off to their deaths, which, okay, whatever. He remembered high school, so, they probably have a right to their misery.

Thor at least had jeans that fit him, even if he was wearing them with ratty old shoes and a button-up that probably belonged to his dad and not to him. The kid was clean and dressed, which was what mattered to Tony. Now that he was sitting sort of still, Tony could see where Thor’s hair is getting long, not quite brushing his shoulders but it probably needed to be cut.

Then again, that could wait until Thor actually asked for a haircut. 

Clint dressed himself in a vivid, bright purple shirt with a band name on it, and Natasha appeared wearing a black tank top, black jeans, and a black cardigan. “Do you need me to get you some black lipstick?” Tony asked her seriously, because, wow, not even a hint of colour. “I know a place.”

“Do you wear makeup?” Bruce asked him.

“Only sometimes,” Tony assured him, patting him on the head.

Natasha bit her lip thoughtfully, looked over at Clint, and then back at Tony. “Maybe,” she said, once she’d decided whatever it was that had needed to be decided. “Also I need eyeliner. And mascara.”

Bruce looked delighted. “When’s sometimes? Why do you wear makeup if you’re a boy? Do other boys wear makeup? What’s ma-scare-a?” 

Tony had no idea what age most girls were when they started wearing makeup, but if Natasha wanted some, she was probably old enough. “Sometimes means when I feel like it or if I’m going to be on TV,” he answered Bruce. “I wear makeup because I can or because the lights make me look washed out, and makeup is gender neutral, it has nothing to do with being a boy or a girl, lots of other guys wear makeup, probably.”

“Mascara makes your eyelashes look pretty,” Jan added, nodding knowledgably.

Tony snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “That,” he said. “That is exactly right. So maybe I wear makeup because I wanna feel pretty, and if I did, that would be cool, right?”

Thor was staring at him in appalled silence, but Natasha had crossed her arms and was nodding alongside Jan. 

“Dude,” Clint said, lip curling in some unidentified teenage emotion. “Come on.”

“What, you don’t think I’m pretty?” Tony feigned sadness, pouting extravagantly. ‘Jan, Clint doesn’t think I’m pretty!”

“You’re very pretty,” Jan told him solemnly as she climbed into her car seat and buckled herself in.

“Yes, I am.” Tony agreed as he herded Bruce and Peter into their own seats. Peter was probably big enough to not need his booster any more, but he didn’t have time to check the safety protocols or guidelines this morning. He’d do it... later, probably. 

Tony got brats into the SUV, and dropped Thor off first at the high school. The Junior High wasn’t too far from there, so he got rid of Clint and Natasha next, and then he turned around to take the littler kids to the elementary school. He walked each of them to class, introducing himself to each of their teachers and letting them know that Captain Rogers would be out of the country that week. 

Once the children had all been properly disposed of, Tony drove back to the house and went inside and.

Yeah.

It’s just really... really quiet.

He fidgets for a while, a little uncomfortable and not sure what to do with himself. This would probably be the best time to tackle the depths of the Rogers Family Refrigerator, but that woud require the sort of bravery Tony might need a hazmat suit for. 

Right. So. 

Grocery shopping! That’s a thing he should do, not for groceries but for things that he can feed the kids that wouldn’t involve actual, like, preparation. Tony grabbed his phone and made another list, for things he was relatively certain he could prepare. 

  1. Frozen Pizza

  2. Microwavable Popcorn

  3. Also Natasha wants  black lipstick

  4. probably fresh fruit or something

  5. snacks? (pudding)

  6. ...




He was halfway through his grocery trip when Tony realized that he actually missed the brats. How had he managed to do that? He only spent four and a half days as a nanny, that was nowhere near enough time to get used to having... people...around. That was stupid. Tony was used to empty houses, he’d spent the majority of his life alone, why would it matter now whether or not he was--

But yeah. Okay. So he maybe was lonely.

He dicked around on the internet for a while, wasting time, and then he gave in and ordered an x-box. And a television. And some other stuff, but that’s entirely because Tony was positive that Captain Rogers had meant to order these things for his kids, he must never gotten around to it. Because he was so busy. It was a small oversight, but it was a good thing he had Tony to fix that kind of mistake.

Then he wandered around the house and found all the empty rooms, which was a little ridiculous, why would anybody who had six kids living in a single house have extra rooms? Wouldn’t Thor, or Clint, or someone want to have their own room, or something? 

Well, Natasha did have her own room, but Tony also remembered what it was like being a fourteen year old-- or twelve year old-- boy, and he was a hundred percent certain that Thor and Clint need their own room. Otherwise, Captain Rogers was going to be spending way too much money paying for them to take hour-long showers several times a day, and that was just a waste.

Tony glared at the empty, unused rooms.

\--

It was entirely possible that Tony was just bored and lonely.

\--

The school bus dropped Bruce and Jan off first, which was fortunate because Tony was going insane. He’d reorganized the garage, that was how boring it was without children around, this house had nothing at all to entertain him. 

He’d spent most of his day updating his twitter feed, creating increasingly ludicrous lies to explain his absence at Stark Industries. Tony’s latest tweet declared something about ninjas, which was when Pepper had called him and told him it was time to stop, and then-- well.

So, kids! Small children had to be at least moderately more entertaining than staring at the wall or wishing he had his lab. Even his computer hadn’t appealed to him, not when he couldn’t technically access any of Stark Industries current projects (legally) and he didn’t have anything of his own to work on.

“So, what do you bratlings usually do after school?” he asked Bruce, who at this point was Jan’s unofficial spokesperson.

“I want a snack,” Bruce said, ignoring Tony’s totally reasonable query. “Today at school the teacher said I was hyper even though no I wasn’t, I really wasn’t, I was trying super hard to sit still but it’s so boring and the math sheet she gave me was boring and the other kids said a bad word but I didn’t tell because I’m not a tattle tale and Jan made a castle in the sandbox but another boy stomped on it so I pushed him over and--”

“You got into a fight on the first day?” Tony said, not sure if he was appalled or impressed. Despite Bruce’s temper tantrum, he’d never pegged the little guy as a fighter. 

But then again, Thor had gotten into a fight with a neighbor kid over a mysterious comment that nobody would divulge, Clint and Natasha had jumped in to back up their older brother when the other kid’s friends had tried to back him up, and apparently Peter had lost a tooth in a schoolyard fight, so. At this point, it should have been more surprising that Jan hadn’t also gotten into a fight yet.

“I just pushed him a little.” Bruce said with a shrug. “My teacher said we don’t push other kids and we’re supposed to tell if someone is being mean but I didn’t tell and he still said sorry so if he does it again I’ll tell but if he hurts Jan I’m gonna push him even harder can we have a snack now?”

At some point Tony was going to have to teach this child about punctuation, or pausing for breath, but that could wait. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve got... apple slices. And carrots.”

All the food in the refrigerator was healthy stuff, like. Vegetables and things that mostly needed to be cooked, which was not happening. Tony had even specified both with the placement agency and with Rogers that he was not going to be cooking, but there wasn’t really much in the way of ready-made food in the house.

Fortunately, Tony had enough ability to wield a knife without seriously injuring himself, so, apple slices and carrots.

Bruce looked suspicious at the offering. 

“There’s peanut butter to put on them,” Tony said. “It’s good, seriously. Try it.”

He didn’t actually know if it was good, but, well. Lying to children is probably part of his job description.

\--

Clint, Natasha, and Thor were all dropped off within a few minutes of each other, and they stomped into the house like a particularly loud herd of elephants, shedding coats, backpacks, and shoes as they went.

Tony stared at the resulting trail of destruction. It ended ended with Natasha slamming her bedroom door, and Clint and Thor both standing in front of the open refrigerator, looking pensive.

“Do I want to ask you how school went?” Tony asked.

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Clint said, looking serious as he dug through the refrigerator and emerged with a bag of grapes.

“Mr. Heimdall says I should try out for the football team,” Thor said. The teenager looked positively nauseated at the thought, as if football had killed his parents.

Remembering the noticeably-absent Mrs. Rogers, Tony decided not to say that out loud. He totally had a handle on his own brain-to-mouth filter, no matter what Pepper thought. “Yeah, only do that if you actually want to,” he told Thor. “Although, extracurricular activities are probably a good idea if you want to get into a good college.”

“I”m not gonna go to college,” Thor snorted derisively.

“Mmf, aahn Mish Hashmee shmathay haa oomaneugh,” Clint added, around a mouthful of grapes.

“Don’t talk with food in your mouth, you heathen.” Tony said to Clint, before turning back to Thor and saying “Right, okay, if you don’t want to college, that’s cool, but  don’t let anybody pressure you into joining football if you aren’t interested was my actual point.”

“Right,” Thor still sounded a little defensive, but Tony decided to let that slide. Not a big deal.

“So, I should probably have snacks ready for you when you get home,” he surmised, watching Thor and Clint annihilate the grapes, three boxes of crackers, and an entire block of cheese.

“Probably,” Clint said with a shrug.

“Right,” he nodded.

Bruce, Jan, and Peter were currently playing in the den, doing something or other that involved a lot of action figures, tinkerbell, and loud explosion noises, but they weren’t hurting themselves or each other so Tony figured he could let them entertain themselves.

He went on his phone and found a nearby indian restaurant that would deliver, which was probably healthier than having pizza four nights in a row. 

\--

After Tony dropped the kids off for their second day of school, he headed back the empty, eerily quiet, _really fucking empty_ house to wait for several hours and do absolutely nothing. Fortunately before he could fully fall into a pit of despair, his cellphone rang.

“Mr. Anthony Edward Stark?” The voice on the other line said, sounding hesitant. “Er-- This is Marianne from FedEx calling.”

Tony squinted at the phone, switching it on to speaker so he didn’t have to raise his head off of the couch where he was face-planted. “Yeah,” he mumbled.

“I’m calling to make sure you’ll be home today between 1 and 2 pm to sign for a delivery,” Marianne from FedEx continued. “There are... some pretty specific directions regarding this particular package. I’m not sure-- this might be a joke, but--”

“Yeah, no, I’m expecting a robot,” Tony said.

Marianne from FedEx went suspiciously quiet for a moment, and then she said, “Er-- wait, are you-- you’re not _that_ Anthony Stark, are you?”

“Um,” Tony said. He didn’t think Stark was a hugely popular name, but-- “You _are_ delivering my robot, right? I mean, Pepper said she was having him shipped out express freight, which means some sort of priority shipping. Is that the one we’re talking about?”

“Pepper _POTTS_?” Marianne from FedEx squeaked. “Mr. Stark, can you-- hold on. Please. I need to put you on hold.”

“Sure,” Tony said. There was a click, then a brief burst of static before a voice started crooning to him about how it wanted to know what love was. After about a minute, Marianne returned. 

“My apologies, Mr. Stark,” she said, sounding a little steadier. “I’m confirming the delivery of a single package to your address this afternoon between one and two pm. This is a priority package, and requires a signature upon delivery, as well as a piece of government issued photo ID.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Tony agreed. “Although I’d bet your delivery guy will recognize me.”

“You’re really _that_ Tony Stark?” Marianne from FedEx asked, a little breathless.

“Yeah, as far as I know.” Tony answered. “I mean, there probably aren’t a lot of us, but I’m the one that’s on the news most often. Probably.”

“Can I just say-- I’m a huge fan of yours, Mr. Stark,” Marianne from FedEx told him. “My younger sister is majoring in Robotics because of you, and-- yeah. I’m really glad to have been able to speak to you.” 

She sounded nice. “Cool,” Tony said. “Always nice to meet a fan, Marianne. Are you a robot person? You sound like  you’d be a robot person.”

“I’m afraid I haven't met very many robots,” Marianne giggled. “But I agree, I’d be a robot person. Um. You’ll be present then to sign for the delivery? It’s also been tagged as a residential delivery, so if you won’t be home yourself, I can flag it for delivery on a day you’ll be present.”

“Its not... uh,” Tony scrambled to find the piece of paper that has the Rogers’ address written on it. “Can you confirm the delivery location? I’m not at Stark Industries right now, and this isn’t a location I’ve had things delivered to before...”

Marianne confirmed that his package would be delivered to the Rogers’ address, and then wished him a good day.

Tony spent the six minutes after she hung up dancing in joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are SO CLOSE to the last of the seven children arriving, SO CLOSE.
> 
> I have no idea how FedEx confirms residential freight deliveries, nor do I care. At all. I know FedEx can ship freight of less than a truckload, that they can deliver things to residential neighbourhoods, and that there is an option to call/confirm pickup/delivery times, and that was all the research I am willing to do on the subject. If you want me to be more accurate in my FedEx portrayals, you will have to pay me.


End file.
